Thursday, November 04, 2010

I came across a Tweet (man, I HATE this 'communication' medium) from a person named Patrick Adkins, who posts on this blog here.

The Tweet states:

In response to this, he rightfully received a couple of angry emails. His response?

Why, it was classic right-wing hiding-behind-mommy style nonsense:

Hey, I make zero apologies for how I feel about the far socialist left. I would like to think that not all Democrats are like this; but I am really beginning to wonder.

I am no longer wondering what most right-wing Tea Bagger types I like - I think it is pretty clear. They want to be able to make Holocaust allusions about what they'd like to see happen to Democrats, and when people respond angrily, they want to accuse THEM of being 'unhinged.'

Typical.

Anyhow, I thought you all would like to see the venom that the left spews, when someone speaks their mind about the far left in this Country.

Ah yes, 'venom' in response to just a little old conservative doing nothing but speaking his mind - about how liberals should be treated like the Jews were by the Nazis.

If that is Adkins speaking his mind, then I don't think much more needs to be said about this pathetic waste of atoms. But I will...

Now, before some idiot liberal says it or asks — do I consider what I said to be hate speech? Nope. I reject that term “Hate Speech” entirely. That is a method by the liberal left in this control freedom of speech.

OK, great - anybody can make a complete ass of himself - Adkins just proved that. And hate speech? Nah - alluding to the burning to death of people simply because of their political views is not hatedful, it is just one cowardly right-wingers FREE SPEECH! But here is where it gets surreal:

I believe that ALL AMERICANS, should be free to say what they want. As long as that speech does not cause mass hysteria or panic. Example: Yelling fire in a theater. However, expressing one’s feelings about a group of political fiends — is not hate speech in my book.

So, put that in your pipe and SMOKE IT liberals! HA! Because you will be waiting a LONG time before you’ll be getting an apology out of me.

So you see, to the conservative Tea Bagger type nutcase, writing about putting liberals in ovens like the Nazis did to the Jews is not hate speech, it is FREE speech! And thinking that way is no biggie - heck, he didn't yell 'Fire!' in a movie theater - so it is no big deal. And he will make no apology for writing what he did - it is a free country! But hey - someone gets angry and responds with THEIR free speech rights, and they are spewing 'venom' and becoming 'unhinged' and making threats.

And that is the way of the world with Tea Bagger types - they perceive themselves as capable of doing no wrong; their opinions are facts; their views are pro-America.

Even when they are not.

Adkins received an email from a retired Army sergeant who did not like his allusions, and poor Patty felt that it was "borderline" threatening -

Secondly, I refuse to renounce my position. Feel free to come and get me. I’m a retirted Airboren Ranger, and will happily meet you with the welcome my grandfahters gave to the Nazis back in World War II: A hail of lead and an unmarked grave.

Not that an internet blowhard like you would ever actually do anything.

Get out of my country.

Douglas E. BerrySSG, USA(ret)

OOOOO - So threatening!Poor Patty - doesn't like to reap what he sows. So much for that right-wing love of the military, eh?

I agree with SSG Berry - I will not renounce my views, and I dare right-wing fruit loops like Patty Adkins to come and get me. If he or his like-minded compatriots ever grew a pair enough to actually try it, they'd find that 'liberals' are not the pantywaists the right fantasizes them to be.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

"At first glance, the above calculation seems to suggest that one might at least be able to select for the creation of one small gene (of up to 1,000 nucleotides) in the time since we reputedly diverged from champanzee. There are two reasons why this is not true. 1. Haldane's calculation were only for independent, unlinked mutations. Selection for 1,000 specific and adjacent muations could not happen in 6 million yrs because that specific sequence of adjacent mutations would never arise, not even in 6 billion yrs." -pp 128-9

That quote is from a book written by a retired Cornell research associate (horticulture) who went through a religious conversion and became a Young Earth Creationist.

His name is John Sanford.The book is called Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome.

The quote explains why I will not be wasting my time reading, nor my money buying, this book. If the reader needs an explanation, please ask. But if you support Sanford's claims as laid out in his book and you need an explanation, that may explain why you support Sanford's claims.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Over on one of the many cesspools of ignorance and disinformation, 'scienceagainstevolution.org', Ol' Do-While himself, David Pogge, software engineer and 'expert' on all things having to do with evolution, is up to his old tricks.

An associate emailed him the following:

I was amazed at how readily you demolished the decades of work by Robert Hazen by merely showing how it is all faith, and how software technicians, like yourself, have been "measuring complexity for 30 years."

I was wondering then if you can tell me how to measure the complexity of, say, a dogfish?

Pogge's response - remember, this is the response of a fellow with dozens of essays attacking the 'hoax' of evolution, who presents himself as an expert on complexity and information theory:

Engineers have a method for measuring complexity. It may not be perfect, but it is reasonable and rational.

As far as I know, biologists don't have any way of measuring complexity (other than, "Gee, this looks more complex than that.").

One will note that he does not even attempt a reasoned resply.

If you take the time to actually read some of his essays - or better yet, read some of the exposes of his crap that are on here - you will see why he did not answer the question.

Briefly, humans have 46 chromosomes, while the other great apes have 48. There is evidence that human chromosome 2 arose via a fusion of two other chromosomes, and that is why we have 46. Ilion claims that even if thi sfusion occurred, 2 problems arise - 1. depressed fertility and 2. the fixation in the population (not enough time, or something).

The short answer is, the human chromosome 2 fusion is not really an issue.

And we can say this by looking at living mammals who do perfectly well with altered karyotyopes fixed in their population (even some that maintain polymorphic karyotyes, which Ilion insists is a bad, bad thing and essentially impossible).

Let's look at one example.

The domestic horse has 2n=66. Przewalski's horse has 2n=64. The difference is a fission of the domestic horse's chromosome 5 (or a fusion of 2 of P. horse's chromosomes forming the domestic horse's chromosome 5, if you like).

Here is the clincher - they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.

Friday, October 16, 2009

And a birther, too! Who would have thought? I had to come out of retirement for this clown...

A blast from the past:

I have written briefly about Troy D. Hailey before - a computer consultant who fancies himself an expert on, well, everything, but especially evolution (claims, as they all do, to have "disproved" it).Well, it seems that even his fellow computer programmer-type folks are not very keen on the condescending, arrogant egomaniac.Seems old Troy didn't dig it that all did not bow down to his superior intellect, and began a flame war of sorts, with the admins and participants at the board trying to decide how best to deal with him:

Chris Maunder wrote:I'm ready to just close it [the 'soapbox' forum] upThat's what Ilion wants. It seems that most - if not all - of the SoapBoxers are united in their opinion of the Ilion person. What you probably should do is find out who this guy's ISP is and report him for abuse,and then block the ISP's IP subnet from being allowed to post on CP.

In response to thje above:

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:That's what Ilion wantsActually it isn't. What he wants is to be able to post his opinions and have them stay in view and not be voted as abusive. Whether or not his posts are abusive, spam, or even vaguely appropriate is another thing.My understanding was that people were ignoring him, so he repeatedly startedposting the same thing and THEN they were marked as spam/abuse.

And to see that arrogant 'charm' from old Troy the self-identified 'nobody' (he is so humble...):

Chris Maunder wrote:Of course you do, as long as you do not abuse the forums or the site.Mr Maunder, you've giving mixed signals here.On the one hand, I should "probably just move on" if I want to try to discuss thing rationally/logically, because it's "abusive" (as per community consensus) to identify the illogical arguments/assertions others make.On the other hand, if I'm not "abusive" (i.e. if I insult other persons right and left, as per community practice), then there is no difficulty.I gotta tell ya' that's dizzy-making. To me, at any rate.

Wait - there is more (emphasis mine):

Look, most of the really active regulars here go out of their way to express contempt for Christianity and for Christians. And that's ok, I'm not complaining; Christianity can take it. And I can take it, so long as I'm allowed to demolish the so-called arguments.However, because I am trying to get at the illogic and/or absurdity of so many of the claims and/or arguments put forward on the anti-Christianity side of the ledger, I am apparently "abusive," as per community consensus. It isn't true in fact, and I do not appreciate it.Now, if 'atheism' and/or 'atheistic' assertions have a privileged or protected status here at CP, I can live with that. As I told you, I came to CP for the programming, not for the Soapbox. However, it would have been nice to know about that special status beforehand.

Because after all, a computer cunsultant expert on everything cannot do anything BUT "demolish" all arguments of those that dare oppose his ideologies...But, it goes on.. and on...

He's [Ilion] taking you for a ride Chris. If you trace back through the threads, you'llfind he was given ample opportunity to expound his arguments and he declined totake them. People, myself included, attempted to dispute points with him (despite his sillyness), but it was to no avail. When everyone began to ignore him (and rightly so) that's when he started bombing the forums. Despite his claims and protestations, he was treated no differently than anyone else. The difference was in him refusing to cease his obnoxious behaviour and his blatant disrespect for ALL PATRONS of this forum. On numerous occasions did several others and I ask him to stop yet he continued. I suggest you continue to monitor this forum for the next few days as I don't believe he is being genuine.

[I grew tired of trying to fix links at this point, but you get the picture...]

And on...

I am not sure what is worse, the constant posts by Ilion, or our response to it.Some of his messages have been deleted under 10 minutes. They are literallybeing removed before I can read them, although they seem to be the same 1 or 2posts over and over. I don't get what his point is, and I don't get why we don'tignore him. I don't remember Ilion posting before a week or so ago. He has fourarticles (I have not read any) and all of a sudden of deluge of incomprehensibleposts. I think we have all agreed that something is wrong mentally (some kind ofpsychotic break?), but do we need to poke the badger with a spoon?

A thread for Ilion to demonstrate....his much touted great intellect.Apparently you believe yourself to be beyond the intellectual capabilities of everyone on this message board. Well, I'm giving you the opportunity to prove it. Answer our questions, the ones that (so far) you refuse to answer. There are many of them, but you seem to believe it acceptable to make flippant statements without having to provide any form of cogent argument. Well, I'm putting you on the spot. Either prove you have something to contribute or finalize that once and for all that you're just here trolling these boards to irritate people and you are not to be taken seriously. Show us you're not a cheap pathetic hack...

It is interesting to note that Ilion did not reply once in that thread...

Hmmmm.....

And then:

He [Ilion] was annoying me because he was intentionally twisting my words.Having an argument with somebody is one thing. When somebody twists your wordsto deliberately misrepresent what you said is another. I have a problem withliars and hypocrites. I call them out. Ilion knows he's lying and deceitfulbecause he doesn't respond to my posts. He thinks he's a Christian - but it'scompletely obvious he's a hypocrite and a liar. He's less of a Christian than Iam and I'm an athiest.

Oh - you noticed all that, too?

Poor Troy Hailey - he can't even seem to get his fellow computer geeks to be on his side and bow down to his ubermensch status!

Because people like Ilion will just never let things rest. They HAVE to have it "known" that they "won", that they are "right". Even when they are not.It is interesting to note that on that site, even the conservatives (well, one of them at least) thinks Ilion is a nitwit:

Ilíon wrote:Man, that's jest terrible! Political appointees being treated as political appointees.Redstateler:You know, I read that and thought something odd. The "e" key is nowhere near the "u" key on a keyboard, so how could you mistype "just" (as a typo) unless you're so hopped up on acid that you have no control of your fingers.

He is, of course, welcomed with open arms on the ARN'>http://www.arn.org/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=0&Board=13">ARN 'Intelligent Design' forum - that is the sort of person that makes up the anti-evolution crowd - arrogant, overconfident, bombastic, and above all, underinformed. So, how can these folks deal with the arrogant blowhard?I have an idea:

Stop talking out of your ass. Everyone on this message board is sick to death ofyour idiocy. Do everyone a favour for once and shut up. It's painfully evident that you don't know a thing about science, you just like to run your mouth and stick quotes around everything. Take your medication. It'll help to make you more lucid. You can't even address the questions I put to you, because when confronted head on you balk and hide. You're pathetic, ignorant and an idiot. That's quite the amazing combination, you should be proud. Not just anyone can achieve such infamy. Of course, you can always respond to the thread I directedat you and prove me wrong, but I know you won't because you can't. You're a sadlittle man with an inferiority complex. I pity you. If only you had the sense torealize just how idiotic you are, it would be a blessing for you AND thismessage board.

Sundry Dembski worshippers flocked to HuffPo from UncommonDescent to defend their Ideology. It appears that many of them, including one 'Uprightbiped' - were on autopilot, and responded to the article by complaining that Brown did not discuss the (pseudo)science of ID.

But you see, the article was about ID on the internet, specifically, how Dembski runs his blog and how he is a hypocrite, which any sensible, rational, intelligent person could see form actually, you know, reading the article.

But not Uprightbiped. Nosirree. You see, he thinks that because the title of the article had the phrase "Intelligent Design" in it, it is supposed to be only about the 'SCIENCE' of ID and nothing else.

And so, Uptightbiped decided to reply by first whining about how Barrett did not specifically discuss ID and how all he did was 'condemn' Dembski - which, amazingly, the ARTICLE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT!!!

Virtually every comment on this post has nothing whatsoever to do with ID -neither does Barrets trivial condemnations of Dembki. One of the commenters herevisited Demski's UD site, stomped his feet and said "Where is your inferencecoming from? Upon what scientific facts is ID based?"

For those who would rather KNOW than be just another link in the chain, you mightconsider reading David Abel's peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of TheoreticalBiological and Medical Modeling. He spells out the case in no uncertain terms.Its available here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958There is also another from the International Journal of Molecular Science: http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdfOne thing is forcertain, no one here will address the evidence presented in either of thesepeer-reviewed journals on its face. Building strawmen, as Barret has done, isalways more fun.

I guess I should also mention that Uptight (yeah, I know, namecalling - well, he took to calling me 'Scotty' at HuffPo, I guess that was supposed to be an insult, so back at ya, Uptight) seems as enamored with creationist David Abell as he is with Dembski.Of course, Uptight's original post did not even acknowledge what Brown's article was really about. So, I replied:

Isn't is amazing?

A piece NOT actually intended to be about the vacuousgobbledegook that is "ID" has nothing whatsoever about 'ID" in it!It is aconspiracy, I tells ya!

Pro-ID zealots are a constant source of entertainment, tobe sure.

And it went on from there, with Uptight engaging in the usual hero protection and false accusations that I have grown accustomed to seeing from these people when things don't go there way.In the end, his posts were little more than focused and constrained Gish gallops and argument via false authority. See for yourself, in toto, starting after my reply above:

Scott, Here is what is amazing: A peer-reviewed article appearing in the Journalof Theoretical Medical and Biological Modeling, and a companion piece in theInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences implicitly states:"The fundamentalcontention inherent in our three subsets of sequence complexity proposed in thispaper is this: without volitional agency assigning meaning to eachconfigurab­le-switch-­position symbol, algorithmic function and languagewill not occur. The same would be true in assigning meaning to eachcombinatorial syntax segment (programming module or word). Source anddestination on either end of the channel must agree to these assigned meaningsin a shared operational context. Chance and necessity cannot establish such acybernetic coding/decoding scheme [71]."

One will note that he replies as if I had responded to him specifically about his links, which I did not. Specifically the last paragraph - Uptight seems to have me confused with others (which he basically admits later, but will not directly acknowledge). I reply:

Interestingly, your reply does the same thing to me that your earlier replydid to Brown's article. It ignored it. That or you got me confused with someoneelse.Perhaps if I use simpler language - Brown's article was not about the lackof scientific merit of ID, or even of ID in general, rather, it was about BillDembski and his antics. Why did you expect his article to address ID when it wasnot about ID?And why would you have expected my reply to you to be about thebafflegab-riddled articles that Trevors and Abel somehow got published when allit was intended to do was point out that your earlier response was essentially anon sequitur?But since you are so enamored with Trevors and Abel, perhaps you canexplain how it is that an objective reader should take their claims seriouslywhen ALL of their 'conclusions' are premised on a totally unsupported assumptionthat the genetric code was 'written'?

One will also note that despite his obvious adoration of Trevors and Abel, Uptight does nto once even try to answer my challenge in the last part. I continued:

Their 2004 paper contains this as a premise:

"How did inanimate nature write:1. the conceptual instructions needed to organize metabolism?2. a language operating system needed to symbolically represent, record andreplicate those instructions?3. a bijective coding scheme (a one-to-one correspondence of symbolmeaning) with planned redundancy so as to reduce noise pollution between tripletcodon "block code" symbols (bytes) and amino acid symbols?... "

Fails from the get go.They start by assuming their conclusion - thatmetabolism/genetic code was pre-planned and written, and that "inanimate nature"cannot do this.Theirs is an argument via analogy combined with an argument via defintioncombined with an argument via personal incredulity, gussied up with somesuperfluous jargon and 'information theory' gibberish.

What about this peer reviewed scientific paper:Natural selection as theprocess of accumulating genetic information in adaptive evolutionM.KimuraGenetical Research (1961), 2:127-140 Cambridge University Press

I should also note the last sentence of the liked paper:"We invite potential collaborators to join us in our active pursuit of falsificationof these null hypotheses."In other words, they've just tossed out some hypotheses. Which is fine. What is not fine is that their acolytes then proceed to present these hypotheses as some sort of unfalsifiable truths.

Uptight responds:

Scott, (Part 1)You say: “Interestingly, your reply does the same thing to me that yourearlier reply did to Brown's article. It ignored it.”My comment was targeted directly at the posts beingmade in this forum. This might have been obvious by the first words of mypost, which were “Virtually every comment on this post…” And by the way, I noticed in your first post you suggested the paper I cited hadnothing to do with the inference to volitional agency – and in yoursecond post you’ve seem to have abandoned the claim.You say: “Perhaps if I use simpler language - Brown's article was not aboutthe lack of scientific merit of ID…Why did you expect his article to address IDwhen it was not about ID?”An article with the words “Intelligent Design” in the heading isn’t about“Intelligent Design”.An article that suggests that ID proponents “can't get away with trying toportray ID as a scientific theory” does not attack the “scientific merit” of ID?So, having had to abandon your original comment as factually untenable, you’vebeen left to make observations that are demonstrably incoherent.Tell me why anyone should take these observations of yours seriously.

Interesting... I've highlighted (in red) some interesting, if not unwitting, 'admissions'..For how did I 'abandon' a claim I never made? Note also that Uptight has attempted to diminish anything I might write - I mean, why would anyone take me seriously when I abandon a claim I never made, right? One will see that, in typical IDcreationist fashion, Uptight later essentially accuses me of doing the same thing to his poor heroes...I reply:

If your comment was directed at other posts, why reply directly tome?

You write:"And by the way, I noticed in your first post you suggested thepaper I cited had nothing to do with the inference to volitional agency – and inyour second post you’ve seem to have abandoned the claim."

In my first post, I mentioned or implied nothing of the sort. In fact, Idid not even MENTION anything you had written - you seem to be coflating again.The SOLE purpose of my first post was to point out that you, as haveseveral other anti-'Darwinists', lamented that Brown did not discuss ID when thefact of the matter is that was not the intent of his article!You go on, as ID advocates are wont to do:"An article with the words “Intelligent Design” in the heading isn’t about“Intelligent Design”. ... So, having had to abandon your original comment asfactually untenable,"

Projection.

" you’ve been left to make observations that are demonstrablyincoherent."

More projection.

"Tell me why anyone should take these observations of yoursseriously."

So, if the article has the phrase "Intelligent Design" in the title, itmust by some magical set of unwritten rules, be solely about ID in toto?Please demonstrate how my comments are incoherent - I realise that to theanti-'Darwinist', mere assertions count as irrefutable evidence, but to rationalfolk, that won't cut it.

In the threaded world of blog replies at HuffPo, things get a little hairy, as Uptight also reponded with this:

Then you say:“And why would you have expected my reply to you to be about the bafflegab-riddled articles that Trevors and Abel somehow got published when all it was intended to do was point out that your earlier response was essentially a non sequitur?”

Your original post was nothing but a petty ad hominemattack on ID which made absolutely no mention of a “non-sequitur” in mycomments, nor did it provide any rationale that supported the idea that oneexisted. You are digging a hole.In truth, you portrayed my comment as “gobbledegook” trying to extorta peer-reviewed paper as having anything to do with ID, and then after beingcorrected you switched to portraying the Abel paper itself as “bafflegab”.You even go so far as to imply that the peer-review process at theInternational Journal of Molecular Science, and that at the Journal ofTheoretical Medical and Biological Modeling, should perhaps be called intoquestion. What is most clear is that amidst all of your repeated attempts toslander the reputation of anyone that disagrees with you, you say nothingwhatsoever about the actual evidence.Why is that?

and

You say:“But since you are so enamored with Trevors and Abel, perhaps you canexplain how it is that an objective reader should take their claims seriouslywhen ALL of their 'conclusions' are premised on a totally unsupported assumptionthat the genetric (sic) code was 'written'?”

Surely you are kidding? You are actually objecting to the completely commonphrase that the genetic code was “written”? Well, if that is your objection,then you need to get your objection pen out.You are going to be busy…“…genes were written in a code…” -CornellUniversity“…DNA sequence, as a book written in a special code…” -Michigan StateUniversity“…a text written in a language common to all life…” -Nat Geo“…a code written in multiples of three bases…” -Nature“…a sequence of words written in the alphabet A,C,G,T…” -CarolinaUniversity

Truly you can’t be serious. Trevors and Abel used theterm “written” in the exact same way as the authors of the text above –and it is an abject lie to suggest otherwise. So not only must you try toslander the reputations of those scientists that disagree with you, you alsomust misrepresent their work in order to do so.

Poor Uptight's heroes, so in need of his protection - so much so, that Uptight, as IDcreationists so often do, felt the need to drum up some well poisoning and false accusations against me. That is what these people do. One will note that other than admit that he takes metaphorical langauge literally, he never does actually show how Abel's claims have merit.Of course, when one bothers to learn a bit more about Trevors and Abel, one finds that, in fact, they are not at all using the term "written" in the exact same way those other sources are. I guarantee it, and it is obvious for the loaded language that TnA use. But Uptight and his creatinist cronies turn off their BS meters when reading wrok from 'friendlies'...

Your finale is one long mischaracterization followed by a few ad hominemarrows thrown in for flavor. Yet, never do you actuallyaddress anything of the observable evidence at the molecular level(almost none of which is even in doubt by scientist of any stripe). Nice defensethere, Scotty- - - - - - -By the way, Kimura’s demonstration assumesreplicatin­g/metaboli­zing cells. Abel didn’t mention it because it hasnothing to do with origins research (since it already assumesreplicatin­g/metaboli­zing cells).

Never mind that TnA never actually mention any evidence - their papers are are purely hypothetical. So, I respond:

Ah, the old creationist stand bys - "ad hominem!" "misrepres­entation!""You're being mean to my hero!"Calm down, fella.Surley, you know whatmetaphorical languiage is, yes? I am fairly certain that the authors of yoursound bites do not think that the genetic and such were 'written' the waycreationist Abel and his pals do.

and

So, you read Kimura's paper did you? I did not mention any of the 'evidence' atthe molecular level at T and A do not actually present any.The fact is, the onlypeople who take their work seriously are themselves and a handful ofIDcreationist types, as evident from the dearth of citation.

Uptight didn't like that much, but he, perhaps, realized that he was in over his head and decided to bow out:

I didn't reply to you - Scott, ...you REPLIED to MY comment.

See how that works?In fact, you have now posted on my comment seven seperate times. Yet, you haven't addressed the actual content of my post even once, and indeed, in the your latest post you continue to attack everything but the evidence. I am willing to allow any readers to make of that what they will.

By all menas you may have the last word.

Poor fellow...

But I'll bet he's a regular HERO at Uncommondescent!Note that in the world of the IDcreationist, quotes and disbelief that you don't agree with them count as a demonstration that their sources are correct.

Sad people.

Unlike the hero-worshipping Uptight, I plan on actually responding to what he has written. It might take me a few days (pretty busy this timie of year), but I'll get to it.